After 26 years of telling readers how to stretch their dollars, Money is doing some stretching of its own.

Nine months after its redesign, the Time Inc. publication is launching the first of several line extensions to reinforce the Money brand name.

Starting this fall, the monthly magazine will team with Time Inc. unit the Parenting Group to produce New Family Finances. Money will provide editorial for the quarterly, custom-published title. Time's Parenting Group will distribute the title through its recently purchased division, First Moments, an in-hospital sampling program to parents of newborns.

Sponsorships will be limited to two major advertisers.

"We want the media community to know we are not a sleepy old brand," said Money Publisher Geoffrey A. Dodge. "It's a very different product from what it was 18 months ago."

First Moments reaches 96% of the country's new mothers through its hospital distribution. Nearly 3.6 million mothers will now see Money's advice on family budgeting, buying a first home, assessing life insurance needs, and saving and investing basics.

The quarterly will drive parents to a Web site featuring calculators for mortgages, life insurance and savings toward college.

'FAMILY MONEY'

Money isn't the only magazine targeting new parents. Meredith Corp. beat it to market with the entry last year of Family Money. Unlike Time's New Family Finances, Meredith's publication is published six times a year and sold on newsstands.

New leadership at Money, which has a 1.9 million rate base, will oversee this extension and others still to come. In February, David Kieselstein was named president of its Personal Finance Group, which includes Money and Mutual Funds. Managing Editor Robert Safian, formerly Fortune's personal finance editor, was given the nod by Time Inc. Editor in Chief Norman Pearlstine in January 1998.

The first redesigned issue of Money hit newsstands 10 months later, unfortunately timed to the stock market wobble that October.

That led to newsstand sales across the personal finance category falling in the last months of 1998, making it difficult to gauge reader reaction to Money's new look in the first few months.

But during the first four months of 1999, newsstand sales rebounded, up 25% over the same period last year, according to Mr. Kieselstein. New advertisers such as Polo/Ralph Lauren Corp., Eddie Bauer Inc., Nissan Motor Corp. USA and Volvo Cars of North America are helping to validate the direction Money has taken, he added.

"The magazine is in a terrific place right now, especially with this latest iteration," Mr. Kieselstein said. "We are very serious about extending this

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Ann Marie Kerwin

Ann Marie joined Ad Age as a reporter on the publishing beat in 1997 and since then has held a variety of editing roles, including Asst. Managing Editor and Media Editor. She currently oversees Member Content.